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I disagree with her point, and don't think this is going anywhere, but it's certainly something i've heard from many men as well who linus pisses off and in particular i bet there could be legal issues at play.

But attacking someone based on their gender or religion, etc. seems wrong to me.

You'd have an argument if the entire reason she was popular wasn't entirely because of her gender.
Linus cusses out men every day, but they never reach news sites because that's the way linus is.
One single female gets upset and everything instantly goes to news sites.

And, since she's talking about professionalism,
Why was she discussing illegal drug activity on the kernel developer mailing list?

But, but, the light side has brownies. Pot brownies that will make
everyone feel sleepy and peaceful and possibly hungry. For more pot
brownies...

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I'm not interested enough in this topic to read all the links and fully educate myself, so it's possible that you have a point and she is starting a gender war here.

But ultimately, attacking her gender because she said you were going to attack her gender seems like a really poor response to me. (And promoting opportunities for women is a lot different than attacking men - which would be the equivalent of what i think this is turning into).

If you have a valid, non-gender specific point - and i think that we do - then we should make that. Going on about how women should go back to the kitchens is just kind of proving her point, IMO. Even if i do find those jokes to be funny.

To make sure, I'm obviously not attacking a gender and I think the other guy wasn't either - I know perfectly sane women exist because I personally know them, so the gender is fine, trust me. This particular person is, however behaving in a way that is making the woman gender look very bad, in a way that is provoking the "get back to the kitchen" response. To repeat

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This is a very valid point. There is absolutely no reason in bringing gender discussion to a field that has absolutely nothing to do with gender.

I agree, i'm just not sure she did. Did she say anything about how we needed to be polite because she was a woman?

AFAICT, she said it wasn't professional to be rude like linus was, and now a bunch of people are attacking her saying women need to be tougher. It just seems like she wasn't the one who brought gender into the discussion at all.

But like i said, i haven't read all the stuff going on, so i could be wrong about that. I'm sure various news articles and so on are, but that's because they are trying to create a controversy so they can make money on page views. I don't think you can blame Sarah about what some stupid news site says when trying to create a controversy, unless she actively fanned the flames to make that the controversy, and i haven't seen evidence of that to date.

Anyway, carry on. I won't respond anymore in this topic because it's probably not going to do any good for anyone, especially me. I just wanted to make sure my points got out there, because i think there are going to be a lot more people with the different viewpoint.

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You'd have an argument if the entire reason she was popular wasn't entirely because of her gender.

Interesting, care to back up that claim?

Linus cusses out men every day, but they never reach news sites because that's the way linus is.

Really? I think you either have selective memory or you're not reading the same news sites I am. Every time Linus raises voice to *anyone*, geek sites report it. Linus can't fart without there being a news report of it somewhere.

One single female gets upset and everything instantly goes to news sites.

Her gender has nothing to do with anything. Feel free to disagree with her, or argue against her points. But do so without whining about her gender.

And, since she's talking about professionalism,
Why was she discussing illegal drug activity on the kernel developer mailing list?

What.

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To make sure, I'm obviously not attacking a gender and I think the other guy wasn't either - I know perfectly sane women exist because I personally know them, so the gender is fine, trust me. This particular person is, however behaving in a way that is making the woman gender look very bad, in a way that is provoking the "get back to the kitchen" response. To repeat

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AFAICT, she said it wasn't professional to be rude like linus was, and now a bunch of people are attacking her saying women need to be tougher. It just seems like she wasn't the one who brought gender into the discussion at all.

The hell with political correctness and "professionalism" (whatever that supposed to mean in the context of e-mail sent by engineers). What is important and what counts is the end result -- good, well maintained software in an environment with a very diverse cultural backgrounds for all people involved.

For some people a direct response is just presenting the things for what they are, and for other people this could be viewed as rude and thoughtless bashing.

I don't remember exactly during which talk it was, but Linus basically told a story of a developer that wanted to implement some new feature in the kernel. So he did send an e-mail to Linus asking him what he thinks about it. He didn't like it, but was polite about it. Effect was, that the devel in question didn't pick up the "no" cues and spent few months developing the feature (not telling anyone that he was doing it). So he sends the patches to lkml and Linus obviously shoots them down in a straight, blunt manner, as they do stuff he doesn't want to see. Effect? Two weeks later a friend of the developer tells Linus that the guy is suicidal, with a heavy depression.

So, is it really worth "being polite" and "professional" if the opposite has a 100% chance of getting your message through?

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Really? I think you either have selective memory or you're not reading the same news sites I am. Every time Linus raises voice to *anyone*, geek sites report it. Linus can't fart without there being a news report of it somewhere.

Her gender has nothing to do with anything. Feel free to disagree with her, or argue against her points. But do so without whining about her gender.

What.

If her gender had nothing to do with it, then we wouldn't be discussing this right now.
Just curious, how often do you think Linus cusses people out? Once a year?
The only reason this is a big thing at all is because she's female, you're in denial if you think differently.

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Complain about his manner all you want, but he's the one that keeps the kernel sane. If others were left to their own devices, without him, you probably wouldn't even have unloadable kernel modules anymore for example. Breaking behaviour that existing programs and services depend on would also be a regular occurrence.

It's not threats of physical violence either, she needs to get a grip. It was a joke about Greg KH's physical size.

Linus Torvalds is actually a very nice man despite the way he tells people off when he's unhappy (It's mostly jovial though... I don't think I'd be offended by it). I spent considerable time reading the kernel mailing list (not so much anymore), and I have seen him interact with many people. In a personal example, I can't believe the time he took explaining things to me, when I was trying to help solve a problem I was having with a driver/piece of hardware. (I felt foolish that I didn't know enough to understand it all but I appreciated the Hell out of it)